


Lots of Love

by thegreatandpowerfultoaster



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Friendship, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 14:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19336696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatandpowerfultoaster/pseuds/thegreatandpowerfultoaster
Summary: He ends up sitting on her desk even after she'd stuck her tongue out at him and told him to move. He sifts around in the pocket of his coat, pulls out a plastic bag with a pressed flower in it, and holds it out in front of her. "You see that?""Uhh, sure, Mister Steel. It looks dead. Like y'shoulda put it in water, or somthin'."





	Lots of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I'm entirely too invested in every stream I mention in this fic :(

Peter Nureyev sure has a lot of love in his heart, for someone who's been more than determined until this point not to have anything real, anything tying him back to being Peter Nureyev.

Maybe that first thing should make Juno angry. It doesn't. 

Rita deserves his love even more than Juno does, right? And it's not like Peter doesn't love him still.

Sure, sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but that all happens on his bad days, and Juno's  _depressed_ , not  _stupid_  and he'd have to be stupid to not realize a product of his own brain. Not when things are how they are right now, when Peter comes back and won't let him spend a moment out of his arms.

Of course, it isn't the same. Peter loves Juno in big, grand gestures that even his low-self-esteem can't deny. In always coming back, in letters written in terrible handwriting, and in nights spent reassuring that Juno can still feel.

For Rita it's flowers on her desk, or an interest in whatever stream she's watching today, or exotic postcards with her name on them and lots of hearts.

Juno wonders, sometimes, if Peter would love them both in some of the same ways if he told him that it wouldn't hurt him. If being one person wouldn't kill him.

He asks him, while Peter sticks one long, thin leg through the window in his office back from a "business trip" to the terraformed part of Plito. The setting sun comes in behind him, and while Peter currently makes a pretty stupid looking silhouette against the light, he can't not see the man as elegant.

"You can love anyone you want, you know," Juno says, swiveling his desk chair around to face the window. The leg comes down on the hardwood floor of the office, and then in swings a torso, and then another leg. 

The legs come on either side of him, and Peter's kissing him with so much more reverence than he deserves, all soft lips and gently scraping teeth. "Of course," he replies, grinning like a fox. "I love you." And then he goes in for another kiss, and Juno hates the way that he pushes back and shakes his head.

"No, I mean...You can love Rita too, you know. That's okay. I mean with me. I don't know about her, although I have a hunch."

Nureyev looks at him, expression unreadable. "I....You're sure? I do mean it every seriously when I say I love you, and you know I wouldn't want to do anything to drive a wedge between us. But you aren't...wrong in that I think I love her, too." And then Peter Nureyev gets all starry eyed. "You are my dearest, excellent detective."

Of course he's not wrong, he's never wrong about this sort of thing. It's what he does.

 "It wouldn't. I understand. And maybe I don't live her that way, but she's still my best friend, so I guess I get it? Actually, I dont, but I meant it when I said I didn't want to trap you somewhere where you didn't want to be."

 "I...That's very considerate, Juno. Thank you."

He goes in for the kiss this time, since Peter's still sitting there stunned. He's waited long enough.

 

Not much changes after that, if he's being honest. 

Sometimes when they're all sitting on his desk, and Rita is waving her arms around and explaining something in detail that really shouldn't make sense but it does, somehow, Peter will get that gushy look on his face and suddenly lean over and kiss her.

And Rita will stop halfway and blink once or twice before getting all giggly.

And Juno will pretend to gag but then Peter turns right back around and kisses him, too, and Juno can't pretend to be anything other than a ridiculous sap anymore.

 

And then Peter leaves again, for some place about a thousand light-years away. At some point that might have scared him more than he'd like to admit, but it doesn't anymore.

Rita, on the other hand gets all mopey. She never had before, so he has to assume it's due to their new arrangement.

Part of him is yelling that it isn't his job to make her feel better, but the part of him that has at least tried to look out for her for around fifteen years now is telling him otherwise.

He ends up sitting on her desk even after she'd stuck her tongue out at him and told him to move. He sifts around in the pocket of his coat, pulls out a plastic bag with a pressed flower in it, and holds it out in front of her. "You see that?"

"Uhh, sure, Mister Steel. It looks dead. Like y'shoulda put it in water, or somthin'."

" _No_ , Rita, that's not the point. The point is that it's a damn dahlia."

She squints up at him. "Yeah, it sure is, but I still don't think I'm seeing what you're tryin' to get me to see."

Juno waves it around in front of her face like it will make his point any clearer. And then he sighs loudly. "No, it's...ugh, it's not all that important, all you really need to know is that Peter gave it to me when we weren't talking and I walked out and...he's always going to come back, is what I'm saying. Even when it's hard to believe."

Rita just looks up at him for a sefond, not moving at all. "Oh. I...how'd'ja know that's what was botherin' me, boss?"

 He shrugs. "You're just not that hard to read."  _I felt it too._

"Well, thanks. I'll try to remember that, I guess. That's it, though? just remember he'll be back? "

"We can try calling, but usually it's not a great idea because he's doing something else that he shouldn't be talking on the phone at the same time with, and he won't hang up and then it's mostly stressful." 

She brightens up, then and suddenly Juno wishes he'd mentioned that first instead of getting all sappy and sentimental. "Oh can we, Mister Steel?! It'd be so interesting, like on  _'Invaders on Hutton Orbital'_ When Annelisa and Samantha started dating but then the aliens attack so they've gotta split up so Annelisa can go get the station the shipment of food on the SSV Galatea and they miss each other so much and Samatha calls her right when Annelisa is running out of air and blasts the food right over to the station and she passes out and the last thing she does is hear Samantha's voice and wow, isn't that just so romantic, Mister Steel? And then she wakes up because it turns out that Captain Shepard was still on board and got them both to Hutton Orbital safely and Shepard kisses Samantha so maybe that last call wasn't as romantic as I though, huh. But I'm pretty sure Doctor Brennan resurrected Captain Shepard and she's working for the aliens now but I dunno because it's on hiatus until like half an earth year from now." 

He wasn't sure that was the best metaphor for their situation. Juno nods anyway.

Is he the Captain Shepard in this situation? He hopes not. Maybe it isn't a metaphor at all. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't. It doesn't matter, they'll call Peter anyways. 

And in any case, that sounds like the most cheery she's been in days.

The rest of the day goes better, even if Juno spends three hours in a stakeout only to discover that supposedly cheating husband of the week is secretly seeing someone, and that someone is a therapist for his previously undiagnosed PTSD. Juno tells his partners that they really ought to talk to him, because it's none of Juno's buisness, takes his money, and goes home.

Rita goes home with him, and they watch TV for an hour, catching him up on Gamma-Ray Girls (he does * _not_ * care what happens, of course and he will keep denying his emotional investment until he inevitably dies). And then they call him. 

"Oh, hello, you two!" The holo comes in static-y but just for a few seconds. "You've caught me at an excellent time to talk, I've just gotten back to my room for lunch. You know, I can see you both very well, this would be excellent if-well, never mind."

Rita giggles, and for a second Juno doesn't understand why, and then he elbows her. "Do that on your own time," he huffs. "Gross." she just giggles harder, which starts Peter up laughing.

They talk for too long. "Whoops," says Peter. And Juno gets to watch as he twists and turns around his little space inside the holo frame and come back with a little thing in one hand. "One Connor Vega was supposed to be meeting with an important, rich member of Kepler 's government nearly half an hour ago. I do apologize for letting time get away from me like that. I'll call you both next time I have a minute. Separately, if that's all right?"

"I'm headed to bed," Juno says. "But sure, love you."

"And I love you, both of you! Ta!" 

 

To be honest, neither he, not Rita can stop smiling after that, even while he's practically shoving her out the door and telling her to go home.

 

Juno's still smiling, even after he's lying down, and somehow a lot of that makes sense. The people that could make him smile even on bad days were happy-happy together, and he was happy, too.

Juno Steel is finding that he has a lot of love in his heart. Maybe not as much as Peter, definitely not as much as Rita, but more than he thought that he had. 

Enough to share the people he loves the most, even with each other. That's got to count for something, right? 

 


End file.
